Barry's Old Warehouse, Saturday Afternoon

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy hadn't meant to lie to Anders when she said that wouldn't be alone tonight. She'd had every intention of going back to the apartment, letting Raven yell at her for that bullshit note she'd left, and then spend the rest of the evening pass by in a Netflix binge, where she'd watch six episodes of a forgettable anime and only drag herself to bed when the sun came up.

That wasn't what happened. Too filthy and injured for Baltimore, she'd made her way to Barry's old warehouse of all places. But it hadn't been the worst place to hole up while she had a breakdown. There'd been a shower, a clothing replicator, even a prototype for a food fabricator, though Kathy'd had to force herself to eat. It also had a lot of bits of heavy machinery that barely dented when she slammed her batons against them and pillows that made a most satisfied ripping sound when she tore them apart. Best of all, it was in the middle of the warehouse district and no one had come to find out what all the clamor was about, save for one squirrel that had run away after she'd flung a bottle of rum at it and screamed, "LEAVE ME ALONE!"

And there were plenty of places to curl up and crash once she'd worn herself out.

It was afternoon before she finally woke up, stiff and sore and still tired. Her reflection in a piece of shiny sheet metal was a blurry composite of light and dark--dark circles under her eyes, dark bruises elsewhere, pale face, and even bits of white feathers caught in her dark hair from her destructive rampage. She barely recognized herself. Hell, she barely looked human. If this were LA again, she wouldn't blame anyone for mistaking her for an ex. "Look at me, I'm a wreck," she muttered, shaking her head. "Just look at me."

"Look at me and tell me who I am,
Why I am, what I am.
Call me a fool and it's true I am,
I don't know who I am.
It's such a shame,
I'm such a sham.
No one knows who I am."

She was dancing now, Fandom's whimsy moving her feet in slow, sweeping circles. She barely noticed, not with memories from the year before rising up unbidden. Memories of when she'd been happy; filled with wonder and songs and laughter.

"Once there were sweet possibilities,
I could see, just for me.
Now all my dreams are just memories,
Fated never to be.
Time's not a friend, hurrying by.
I wonder who am I?

Am I the face of the future?
Am I the face of the past?
Am I the one who must finish last?"

Her circles slowed, bright memories fading back to grim reality. She came to a stop right back at the metal sheet acting as a mirror. Once again, she looked into it, and her reflection stared back at her with dull eyes. She barely recognized the girl in the makeshift mirror. And wasn't sure she wanted to.

"Look at me and tell me who I am,
Why I am, what I am.
Will I survive?
Who will give a damn,
If no one knows who I am?"

"Nobody knows," she whispered to herself. "Not even you. No one knows who I am...."

[Post is open and musical!]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy nodded, pushing herself to her feet more slowly than normal and crossing the space to sit. It felt like a longer trip than it was.

It felt like coming home.

"I hold a memory of myself
So young and foolish and not knowing
Careless decisions that I made..."

Tears threatened and she held them back. Words hovered, but she dismissed those too.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante quirked a small smile at her as she came over, but he didn't say anything either. Just reached out to wrap an arm around her shoulders and pull her in close.

She hadn't earned getting his shit today.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly for a moment, before letting him go to lean where he'd pulled her in.

"So I don't know if anyone's mentioned it to you yet," she said, going for a moment of lightness while she struggled to put her feelings in check, "but you look weird with white hair."

There were more words in that song that Kathy wasn't ready for yet. Words about forgiving oneself and moving on. Just like this wasn't the happy ending she'd spent so long wishing for. If anything, this was a happy beginning, the first step down a long road. But, for right now, she had faith she could walk it.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante let out a soft, disbelieving snort - really, Kathy? "You and half the island," he said. "I'm leaving it this color just to fuck with you people now."

[spin_kick_snap]

It was that or word-walling at you, Dante. Give her a few moments to calm down.

She reached up to tug on it a bit, feeling the texture under her fingers. It felt different than she remembered, but she couldn't tell if it were his hair or her memory that had been altered.

"If you think it's going to take a bit of white hair to fuck with me, you're in for a surprise."

[rebelseekspizza]

"You just said it was messing with you," Dante pointed out, making a half-hearted attempt to thwap at her fingers. "I'm gonna be telling people to stop doing that for weeks, too."

[spin_kick_snap]

"No, I said you looked weird," she told him with a small smile. But it was a real one, as so few of hers were these days. "I said nothing about me."

She moved her fingers out of the way of the thwap, but removed her hand from his hair.

Lyrics rose to her mind of her own volition, not Fandom's and she didn't sing them. But she felt them, with her entire being.

Forgiveness. Can you imagine?

[rebelseekspizza]

"Ugh," Dante said theatrically, but he didn't move further out of the way. "Whatever, Kat. I got your number."

He'd be lying if he said his own thoughts weren't still a jumble. But for the moment, this part - the Kathy part - was quiet.

No, not quiet. Calm. Like this was fine.

[spin_kick_snap]

Calm. Quiet. Two things Kathy hadn't had much of over the past few months.

"Yesterday was really hard for me," she told him, because he'd asked and she'd danced away from giving him an answer. "Not the demons. Wait, I mean, definitely the demons, if I never have to play tag with a chainsaw again it'll be too soon, but not just the demons. It brought a lot of things back for me. I came here to have the breakdown I couldn't have in front of anyone else."

[rebelseekspizza]

"All of the zombie shit?" Dante guessed.

And hey, look. Now Kathy wasn't the only one who felt guilty.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oddly enough, running through a broken urban landscape with things that want to eat you feels pretty much the same, whether it's exes or demons," Kathy said tartly. "But...yeah. It could have been any day of those last few weeks, except this time the shit I was fighting had brains and weapons, too. I..." She brushed her hair from her face. "A couple of times, I couldn't have told you where I was if you'd asked me."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Sorry," Dante said. He frowned. "I never shoulda asked you in the first place."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm...well, I'm not glad you did," Kathy said. "But it would have hurt if you hadn't. I was preparing for that hurt all week. And I was scared. We were going to go fight things that regularly fucked you up and, hey, I got taken out by a woman that had been dead for days. Not exactly a confidence booster."

She glanced up at him and offered him not a smile but eyes filled with understanding. "I feel like I owe a lot of people on this island. The ones I hurt. The ones who brought me back. But there are exactly four people on this island I would have gone into Limbo City for. The chance to help you meant more than the nightmare I knew it'd be."

[rebelseekspizza]

"But it fucked you up," Dante said quietly. "I never wanted that."

He really would have been relieved, if she'd said no.

[spin_kick_snap]

But it would have been one more time that he asked her for something and she'd denied him.

"I'm already fucked up," she reminded him. "If I weren't, yesterday wouldn't have been so bad. 'Cause I'm broken when I'm open. And I don't feel like I am strong enough."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Just... don't fuck yourself up on my behalf, all right?"

Dante turned his head to look at her. Maybe for something else, too-- though Fandom got in the way. "Well I'm not
The kind to insist
You couldn't have missed
We must co exist
So please listen to me
There is no such thing as human debris."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy's eyes flicked downwards for a moment but skipped back up to his eyes when he started singing. "I'm still feeling my way through, figuring out what I can handle and what I can't," she said. "But I can promise that I'm never going die for you. Any and all martyr complexes have been firmly put down. "

[rebelseekspizza]

"Good," Dante said, sagging back against the couch. "Because that's the absolute last thing I want. You should get to live your life already."

[spin_kick_snap]

"That's on the to-do list," Kathy said, still sitting where she'd been. "Right after get my shit together and figure out what I want to do with my life."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Making any headway on that?" Dante asked.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I don't know what to do with my life
Should I give it up and make a new start
I don't know what to do with my life
'cause the one I've got just tears me apart."

Thank you, Fandom. "By which I mean, not really," Kathy said when her voice was her own again. "Pretty sure going to medical school isn't it, though."

Honestly, if she'd just agreed to become a pantsless hobo in room 322, maybe all of this heartache could have been avoided.

[rebelseekspizza]

"You could always just turn Dite's into a franchise, I guess," Dante suggested.

It wasn't like Kathy didn't have enough experience with the subject matter.

[spin_kick_snap]

She turned a little rosy at that, thoughts trending in a similar direction. "You know if I make it into a franchise, I'll end up teaming up with Planned Parenthood to make it into a safe-sex, consent-celebrating, crunchy-hippy sex-Tumblr paradise that exists to, like, convince teen girls to respect themselves while having great sex."

...Which, yeah, sounded pretty awesome.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante squinted at her. "Just don't forget about dicks," he said finally.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm way too mostly-straight not to," Kathy informed him, nose in the air.